


Dressed up

by daeneryssed



Series: confessa's widojest week 2020 cornucopia [2]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Costume parties, F/M, Fluff, I told you guys I hadn't named any of my widojest week fics, The Mighty Nein are so cute you guys, Widojest Week, also, cuteness, i love them, is what you get instead, oh well, realised only after fic was posted that, the prompt is DRESSED up not dress up asdfghjkl, this title might be a new low for me, to make up for the first fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-07
Updated: 2020-07-07
Packaged: 2021-03-05 02:42:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,885
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25127176
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/daeneryssed/pseuds/daeneryssed
Summary: It’s Halloween. Caleb has been forced to don a doctor costume - FORCED - and now there’s a cute blue tiefling in a nurse’s outfit flirting with him. AKA Jester and Caleb meet, and meet again, and again, through a series of parties and dress-ups.[prompt two: Dressed up]
Relationships: Jester Lavorre/Caleb Widogast
Series: confessa's widojest week 2020 cornucopia [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1820233
Comments: 5
Kudos: 57
Collections: Widojest Week 2020





	Dressed up

**Author's Note:**

> This isn't my best fic but it was the first one I wrote for WidoJest week and I love it because the Nein are *cue Caleb's Jester voice* SO cute you guys.
> 
> Also someone give me a title for this fic otherwise it's gonna remain as the literal prompt asdfghjkl

This was the absolute worst idea. 

Caleb could not believe he had allowed Veth and Beau to force him to attend this party. And it was _forced_. It wasn’t a hyperbole; it was literal. Beau had actually held one arm down while Veth had tried to push his other arm into a doctor’s coat. Granted, he had been laughing with tears in his eyes, but part of that had been because Beau was simultaneously tickling him. 

This was still the absolute worst idea and the reason for that was staring him in the face. 

“Heeellllloooo?” the blue tiefling said in a sing-song voice. “Are you okay? I asked your name. If you have one. I think you can speak because Beau talks about you like you speak and I think I saw you speaking so...”

This was the absolute worst idea because there was a cute tiefling in a cute nurse outfit trying to engage him in conversation and he was being the biggest dummkopf there was. 

_Just. speak._

“Hi,” he managed to croak back. He could feel his neck warming. Thank goodness the lighting this corner of Keg’s living room was terrible. It gave him the smallest chance that the tiefling wouldn’t see how his face probably resembled a tomato right now. “I’m Caleb,” he said, forcing his voice level. 

“You speak!!” the tiefling squealed, tail whipping back and forth - was that a heart on the end of it? Oh gods he did not pray to, have mercy on him - and her hands clapping together happily. “I’m Jester.”

It took Caleb more than a couple of seconds to take her outreached hand and shake it. 

“Wow, you’re warm,” said the tiefling. “Like a fireplace!”

At least his palms weren’t sweaty. 

“I’ve been told that."

“Suits your red hair.”

“I’ve been told that too.”

The tiefling - Jester - giggled. “You’re finally talking.”

“I’m sorry,” he said, feeling his neck warm again. “I’m, er, not so good with crowds.” He genuinely wasn’t. The party wasn’t packed, for sure, but any group with more than three people in it tended to make Caleb uncomfortable, much less twenty. Much less a party where a cute girl actually spoke to him. 

“Well, it’s just me!” said Jester, beaming at him. Her eyes were violet and sparkled in the low lamplight reaching their corner. Her tail swished again under her nurse’s skirt. “I promise I’m a _very_ nice person and _surely_ you can’t be scared of your own nurse!”

“My...my own nurse?”

“Yeah!” The tail swished again. His eyes kept flicking down to it. “You’re the doctor and I’m the nurse. We make a cute pair, huh?”

Surely she could not be _flirting_ with him. Right? No one had flirted with him since Astrid. He was...he was unflirtable, as Beau had once put it in standard Beau form. 

“Right…” he said, trailing off and unsure of what to say. 

The big smile on Jester’s face wavered a bit. “Um, yeah, well.” She began to shift a little away from him. “We can talk again later! Maybe when we play games!” 

And just like that, as quickly as she came into his life, she was gone. 

Scheiße, he really was the biggest idiot. 

  
  


Caleb couldn’t believe it. 

Here he was in a ridiculous cat outfit and Jester was there in a dog one. 

This time, after months of feeling terrible about how he had handled their last conversation - they had not, in fact, spoken again and Caleb had left the party early - and being scolded by Beau for making things awkward with her newest friend, he initiated the conversation. Well, he had spent the past thirty minutes alternating between pacing about the house and hiding in the toilet, panicking about what to say to her, but he was now ready to initiate the conversation. Clearing his throat, he forced himself to approach. 

“We are matching again,” he commented, the loud music thankfully drowning out the tremor in his voice. 

“Caleb!” Jester cried out as she turned to him, a big smile spreading across her face. She was as cute as he remembered. “Oh my god, yes, we are!”

He felt a jolt of happiness at her smile. Whose spirits wouldn’t lift at the unadulterated joy that she seemed to emit? 

“A questionable choice of animal but that’s up to you.”

Her smile faltered and it was a beat passed before she cackled. “You were joking!”

He frowned at her, genuinely perturbed. “Of course I was joking.”

“Oh Caylebbb, you say things with such a straight face and you were so awkward the last time I didn’t know whether you were just, you know,” Jester leaned into him conspiratorially, “ _weird._ ”

Caleb maintained a straight face. He was good at that. “I _am_ weird.” 

This time, Jester laughed immediately, her purple eyes scrunching up and teeth showing. “You’re _funny,_ Cayleb.”

Oh thank goodness she did not completely hate him. However awful he had made her feel, clearly she had forgiven him. 

“I’m sorry for last time,” he said, wincing. “I was a little into my cups and not the best conversationalist. I promise to be better this time.” 

Jester only beamed at him, her tail flicking against his shin. “You better.”

  
  


“You are dressed as me!!” screamed Jester as soon as she laid eyes on him across the living room. A few people turned in their direction and snickered upon seeing Caleb’s poor attempt at cosplaying as a male tiefling. 

“I tried,” he said as she bounded up to him. “Veth painted my face and she, er, went to town. Beau got me the clothes.”

Jester laughed. “ _No wonder_ she kept eyeing me recently. I bet she was trying to figure out what clothes I usually wear.” She paused, eyes narrowing, before she leaned in close. _Way_ too close. Caleb resisted the urge to back away. Her eyes were so _purple_. “You are wearing eyeliner, Cayleb.”

“I am.”

“Are you, like, a goth Jester?”

“A goth tiefling.”

“You’re blue though. So you _must_ have been thinking of me, right?”

Caleb’s ears felt warm. He was always thinking of her. The words nearly slipped out too. “I...suppose,” he conceded. Jester giggled, clearly appeased by his answer. 

“What are you supposed to be?” Caleb asked her now, tilting his head to survey her out. She was covered in a ridiculous green manila cut-out, shaped somewhat like a misshapen… “Snap pea?” 

“No!” cried out Jester. “I’m a leaf! Isn’t that _obvious,_ Cayleb?”

God, he loved the way she said his name, her thick Nicodranian accent rolling the first syllable thick. He swallowed hard, the back of his neck warm. Scheiße, Beau was right; he was in _deep_. 

“Ah, er, I suppose, er, in a certain light, you could-” 

Jester’s faux outrage didn’t last. It never did. A grin broke through her annoyed facade. “It’s okay, Cayleb,” she said sweetly, “you tried. I know this outfit isn’t great. I just didn’t have a lot of time, you know? Work has been _so_ tough.”

Caleb gave her a sympathetic smile. It had been. She hadn’t come to their group outings nearly as much as she had before. He had missed her. 

He missed her all the time. 

“Also,” said Jester sadly, tail swishing behind her, “I’m sad we aren’t matching this time. I should have, I don’t know, dressed up as a princess.”

“But you already look like a princess,” he said automatically, the words slipping out before his mind could even process them. His mouth snapped shut. 

Jester’s eyebrows raised comically. “Right now? In this costume?”

“Ja,” he plowed on, “that’s how you know how grand you are, right? Looking like a princess even in a snap pea costume.”

“A _leaf_.”

“That’s what I said.”

“You didn’t!”

“Really?” 

His straight-faced replies had the intended effect. The corners of Jester’s mouth had begun to tug upwards before her usual wide smile burst through. “Oh Cayleb, you are actually pretty funny, you know?” 

He only smiled back at her, unsure how to take the compliment. She smiled back. And it was a few seconds before each of them looked away, clearing their throats and stepping back. 

“Shall we find the rest?” he asked, blushing furiously. What _was_ that?

“Yeah,” she replied, and he could have sworn her cheeks were blooming purple too. 

A coil unfurled a little in his chest. He couldn’t stop smiling for the rest of the evening. 

  
  


They turned up to the next party together. In matching outfits. He was a blueberry cupcake - _boring_ _Cayleb_ , Jester had told him, although her cheeks had flushed when she connected the dots - and she had chosen her favourite black moss topping. 

Veth had screamed at how cute they were, Beau had groaned, Yasha and Caduceus had both given him proud looks - how long they had pushed him to make a move - while Fjord had walked in, clueless, dressed as a pirate with an eye-patch and distracted them all by tripping over a stool. 

“We make a cute pair, huh?” Jester said as the rest of the group rushed to check on Fjord. 

Their fingers were intertwined. He never knew how perfectly two hands could fit together. 

“We do,” he replied. “We are _just so_.”

  
  


“You guys are seriously going to dress up like this?” 

“This is your _wedding_ , Jester, are you sure you don’t want your dream white dress?”

“It’s unconventional, but I think it’s nice.” 

“I mean, as long as they are together, that’s the important thing right?”

“And I have to wear this hat??”

Jester giggled, her tail flicking happily under her long, frilly dress, her hands pulling down on her leather petticoat. The bells on her horns jingled. She looked right out of a medieval fantasy. “ _Yes_ , you guys. Cayleb and I met and got together all dressed up. So we want to honour that! It’ll be fun to see everyone dressed up too! Right Cayleb?”

Caleb gave her a deadpan look. “Why am I dressed in dirty rags though?”

Beau cackled behind him. “Because you are an unwashed mess half the time, Caleb!”

“That was a _long_ time ago,” he shot back. “I was very stressed at work.”

“You _did_ smell quite bad, Caleb,” Veth said, wincing and looking guilty. 

“You know, with Caduceus, you guys kind of smelled like meatloaf.”

“What?”

“Wait, I really have to wear this hat?”

Jester’s hand on Caleb’s arm distracted him from the chaotic mess that were his friends. He turned to her, his spirits soaring at the sight of her in her pretty dress, looking so adorable. He was...he was going to _marry_ her. She was going to marry _him_. He could hardly believe it. This must be a dream.

“Don’t worry, _Cayleb_ ,” she said, smiling up at him. “This was just a joke. Well, _kind of_. You don’t have to wear this if you don’t want to. I have this really nice purple cloak picked out for you. And we are going to change into really nice formal wear too! Caduceus helped choose the clothes.” 

Caleb smiled back at her. How could he say no to her? “Anything you want, blueberry.” 

Jester’s smile grew and they met in the middle for a sweet kiss. 

“Someone tell me if I’m supposed to wear this hat!” 

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you liked it!!
> 
> EDIT: Someone on Twitter pointed out that the prompt is "Dressed Up" which my mind had totally read as "dress up" AKA COSTUMES. oh my. This still counts, right? HAHA


End file.
